1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus capable of synchronizing, for example, personal setting information or the like with an external apparatus, and a control method of the image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the recent widespread use of cloud computing, image forming apparatuses have also incorporated mechanisms that enable management of personal setting information and setting information of devices on the cloud, and sharing of such information among image forming apparatuses. For example, data of the address book for each user can be managed on the cloud, and can be shared among image forming apparatuses. Meanwhile, for image forming apparatuses, an extension program such as a Java (registered trademark) application can be subsequently installed. While the cloud-based data linkage as described above is widely used for functions that have been previously embedded in the image forming apparatuses, the user convenience will be further increased if the cloud-based data linkage is made possible for the personal setting information and the like that are handled by such a subsequently installed program.
However, the development kits for such subsequently installed extension programs are often released to third parties, and contain applications developed by vendors other than those developed by one's own company. If the cloud-based data linkage is applied to the personal setting information handled by an application developed by the third party without any restriction, it will be difficult to control the data size of the personal setting information and the performance during synchronization. In addition, security concerns arise depending on the content of the personal setting information. Furthermore, embedded programs also enable the cloud-based data linkage to be applied to the set values and the like of devices, in addition to the personal setting information. However, an access to the setting of a device by a third party program directly affects the operation of the device, thus posing security problems. Accordingly, when the data of a subsequently installed program is synchronized on the cloud, it is necessary to distinguish at least between the data handled by a third party extension program and the data handled by a company's own extension program created by the vendor of the image forming apparatus before considering the synchronization method.
As a known technique, a method of analyzing the content of data and categorizing the data has been proposed. Examples thereof include a method in which the content of documents is analyzed, and those with high confidentiality are categorized. However, the known technique is problematic in that it takes a considerable amount of time to perform analysis processing, leading to a reduction in usability. In order to solve the above-described problem, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-137973 proposes a method in which the speed of data categorization is increased by performing categorization in multiple stages.
However, even though the method described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-137973 can increase the speed of data categorization aimed at controlling the user access, the patent document does not disclose how to synchronize the categorized data with the data on the cloud. Therefore, a problem to be solved is to provide how to categorize data in a form suitable for cloud synchronization.